That’s Right: Silly Makes Money

That’s Right: Silly Makes Money

by Amy Lignor

One of the most often seen headlines of late comes from the world of entrepreneurs: how up-and-comers with silly ideas are raking in the dough and living large. Whether this is because there are no jobs out there and people have to take it upon themselves to make money; or it’s because more and more people want to be self-employed because they’re sick of the jobs they currently have – it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that great “ideas” have been appearing left and right lately; even some that have people laughing when they first hear about them. Have you heard of the Squatty Potty yet? Well, this is a silly name, and was laughed at by the billionaires when the creators of the product came on “Shark Tank” and presented their idea. Of course, the sharks laughed for only just a moment, until they found out how much cash this product was raking in. One took the idea and ran with it, and now…Squatty Potty’s are popping up in every household!

This is not new, by the way. Some of the silliest creations/ideas in this world ended up “catching on” and bringing in loads of cash to their creators.

Let’s step back in time…

You are sitting at your desk in 2016. What is the one thing that you need and can be found on every single desk around the globe? No. Not a computer. That’s a given. We are talking silly, here. They began as just yellow, square pieces of paper and became an innovation that changed the world forever. The man’s name was Dr. Spencer Silver, and he had invented an adhesive in the late 1960s which was unlike anything that had come before. A man named Arthur Fry used the adhesive to stop a bookmark from slipping out of a choir book. The adhesive did not tear the paper and…the Post-it was born. Ever since then, no desk has been without a package of Post-it notes. Although, now they can choose all different kinds of colors.

Sometimes all you need is a catchy little jingle. Remember this? “What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound? A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing! Everyone knows it’s…Slinky!” And in 2016, the Slinky is still selling. Amongst all these tablets, smartphones, 3-D technology and so much more, this humble little thing is still something that appears in a child’s Christmas stocking. His name was Richard James; he had an odd day in his life when he hit a tension spring onto the floor. He made note (in his mind, because the Post-it hadn’t been created yet) of how the spring continued to flip over. $250 million in profits and climbing once again, the Slinky is still “a wonderful toy, that’s great for a girl or a boy!”

Here’s the one I still don’t understand even though it came out the decade I was born and sold off the charts. His name was Gary Dahl, and in the 1970’s he made a small, cute little box, threw some hay into it, and placed a rock with eyes on top of the hay. These were pets that anyone and everyone could have (and everyone did have one or more) that did not need feeding, walking, training, etc. Pet Rocks were a gag gift, nothing more, yet the gag brought in billions.

The final one that should most definitely be given a “shout-out” to, most likely made a whole lot of money because of this world’s continued obsession with magic and the occult. (No rolling of the eyes here.) Even the TV stations in 2016 air every ghost story, clairvoyant, person who speaks to dogs, to the dead, to the curtains – heck, they speak with everything now. Tarot cards, the Ouija board – some of these items are actually seen as “medical” devices that can tell your future correctly or allow you to speak to spirits who want to be heard. In the 1940s, the man’s name was Albert Carter; he took what he saw, having a mother who considered herself to be a clairvoyant, and created the Magic 8 Ball. Ask it a question, shake it, and you will receive the answer (key creepy music here). The only downside of the thing is when, “Ask Again Later,” seems to come up every time you ask a question. Yet here it is, 2016, and the Magic 8 Ball is still being manufactured.

What would the billionaire brains in the “Shark Tank” have said to these inventors way back when if they’d brought in their ideas? They would have been laughed out the door. So for all you entrepreneurs out there who have the next Pet Rock, don’t give up. You may just have the one product that will cause this globe to run to the stores and jump online ASAP in order to buy that perfect product they just HAVE to have.

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